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There are quite a few Catalinas in Australia these days, managed to visit a couple recently. Two hours south of Sydney at Albion Park the Historic Aircraft RestorationSociety Catalina, Australia's only airworthy Cat.

The other side of the country the in Perth the Bull Creek aviation museum's Catalina in USN markings.

Also around two hours flying time north of Perth the remains of a RAF Catalina in the mud flats off the small coastal town of Broome, her story as follows.

Please excuse me from getting a bit carried away and turning this intoa bit of a once upon a time type story. This little “quest in the west” has been a bit of a dream come true for me as I have been interested in flying boat stories wherever they may have occurred for many years.

My wife an I have been interested in visiting Australia’s isolated north western corner for many years. The opportunity finally arose and after the long flight from Sydney via Perth we found ourselves in the Broome.

The small remote coastal town made many people wealthy on the back ofthe pearling industry, which still exists today. I am a fan of history and Broome perhaps holds the story of Australia’s most dramatic and tragic aviation related events.

In the early days of WW II the Japanese advanced their way south through Asia towards the island nation, many europeans escaped via whatever means available. An obvious method of escape by air, fights to Perth often staged via Broome with an airstrip and the protected waters of Roebuck Bay for flying boats.

A memorial and Japanese gate looking south out over Roebuck Bay.

On the morning of 3/3/42 fifteen flying boats were moored in Roebuck Bay, five Dornier D024s, eight Catalinas and two Empire Class flying boats. At around 9.30am nine Mitsubishi A6M.2 Zero fighters of the 3rd Kokutai (Aircraft Group) arrived over Broome. All fifteen flying boats as well as a number of land planes and other installations where destroyed. It is believed around 80 people where also killed or lost at sea, the exact number to this day has not been verified.

Broome Museum collection.

The local museum has a number of artefacts and photos from the event.

A water colour of a sinking Dornier with a Pearl lugger taking off passengers.Broome Museum collection.

Dornier engine.

The remains of a Bristol Peagasus from one of the Empire Class boats.

We timed our visit to coincide with a lowish tide, .94m at 5.45pm. The tides in the area can be some the most dramatic on the planet, on 25/6/17 the variance was from .9m to 9.45m! I had make some local enquiries and was told the tide wouldn’t get low enough to view the wrecks at the time of my visit. In retrospect I believe to locals discourage walking out to the wrecks so as people don’t get caught out by the rapidly moving water! Armed with a bit of determination and my trusty Canon I set off across the mud flats to seek a flying boat wreck!

Firstly came across some man made structure which didn’t look like a flying boat, correctly deduced it was part of the old jetty which no longer exists.

It was quite a hike through sticky mud to the waters edge, had to wade in places through at times knee deep water. I bumped into a couple of airline pilots who where also pretty keen so we teamed up. Initially heading westtowards the setting sun, with both the light fading and the tide about to turnthings were’t looking too promising. Gave up on the western search retraced my steps east, then off in the distance I spotted a dark line! On getting closer I discovered my quest in the west, obvious remains of a wrecked aeroplane.

This is the remains of RAF Catalina FV-N, looking south west towards the coast.

In the foreground the starboard engine, the exhaust looking from underneaththe rest of the engine buried in the mud.

Standing in front of the port engine, you can see very clearly where the frontturret would site towards the left front of the image.

A little mystery, how did the starboard engine end up off to the port side?A number of reasons I guess, maybe it exploded and was thrown that wayor perhaps the tidal movement had moved the fuselage?

Sometimes you just get lucky, there are a couple of hovercraft that do tours outover the mud flats, right when I was about to leave this chaps showed up, off tothe right you can just see some wreckage of another flying boat.

Even luckier, not sure if the pilot/skipper put her in front of me I am gratefulif he did! Again off in the distance to the right you can see another wreck.Now sorry about the following but I simple can’t help myself. “A wrecked flying boat with a boat that flies.”

The PBY in Perth / Bull Creek looks to be amazingly complete. In spite of being a static display inside a museum, do you have any idea how close to "airworthy" it is?

And as a personal observation or opinion, I understand the historical significance of the all-over black paint schemes used for night operations during the war, but I cannot imagine how much of an "oven" it would be under a hot summer sun - and therefore I also cannot understand anyone wanting to paint an aircraft like that if you didn't absolutely "have" to!

Thanks for posting all of those great photos. Re the above quote, the RAAF had nowhere near 400 Catalinas. The actual figure was 168.

Rajay - re the Bull Creek query, it had not flown for a very long time before being restored in the USA for the Museum. It was at one point owned by David Tallichet who displayed it outside one of his restaurants. I've got the full history - if you want it, you know my email address. One interesting point about the aircraft is that, as can be seen from the photos, although it was a late PBY-5A model, it was built with a PBY-6A-style triangular bombardier window in the bow. This window shape was introduced just before PBY-5A production ceased.

David LeggEditor: The Catalina News, The Catalina SocietyAuthor: Consolidated PBY Catalina - The Peacetime Record

Yes, although the serial run started at A24 -1 and ended at A24-386 there were significant gaps so the actual number supplied to the RAAF was 168 although, as with most things related to Catalinas, there is a caveat! A USAAF OA-10A Catalina was left behind in Australia and was taken on by the RAAF although it was not allocated a RAAF serial and I do not believe it was actually used but was sold off as surplus. So, arguably, there were 169 but 168 is the number supplied under contracts and Lend-Lease. Also, a US civilian registered PBY-5A was painted up in RAAF colours a few decades ago and carried the spurious serial A24-387 but it was not official.

David LeggEditor: The Catalina News, The Catalina SocietyAuthor: Consolidated PBY Catalina - The Peacetime Record

Sadly as many would know all the above photo bucket pic's have gone,I will get around to restoring them one day, in the meantime I chaseddown another Cat being brought back from the brink!

Catalina restoration near Rathmines, the former RAAF Catalina base justsouth of Newcastle on Lake Macquarie. This old gem was imported from South America, she has a long way to go but will one day be restoredin RAAF markings.

Our local museum recently had a bit of a fire sale of images they don't use anymore, managed to score some gems. A wonderful late war shot of a RAAF PB2B2 “Black Cat” on Lord Howe island. Love the wear and tear, the crew members reaction to what hehas just heard on the phones, also note the rudder hasn’t been repainted and the quality of the image, that's why I posted it so big, sorry!

Another nice shot, from what I can make out the RAAF got 47 of the 67 late model PB2B2 tall tailed Catalinas manufactured, happy to be corrected.